INTERNATIONAL: CHINA PILGRIMAGE - Dogen and Hanshan Sites

Travel to China with Sensei Kaz Tanahashi and Sensei Peter Levitt April 18 - May 3, 2017. Visit Tiantong Monastery where the great thirteenth-century Japanese Zen Master Dogen was trained by his teacher Rujing. We also visit the nearby cave where the legendary hermit-poet Hanshan lived and used the cave walls to write his poems.

Social Action & Science

Being With DyingThis Professional Training Program for Clinicians in Compassionate Care of the Seriously Ill and Dying is fostering a revolution in care of the dying and seriously ill. Clinicians learn essential tools for taking care of dying people with skill and compassion.

ChaplaincyA visionary and comprehensive two-year program for a new kind of chaplaincy to serve individuals, communities, the environment, and the world.

Archive | Upaya’s Blog

“The mystery of koans comes about because they are non discursive; they invite us not to use the thinking mind, but actually to cut off the thinking mind, to be in a very deep state of absorption, that is, to be absorbed completely by the koan, by the case.” Roshi Joan Halifax

The decision to plunge into the unknown brought Petra Hubbeling—a novice priest in the White Plum tradition—to Upaya for the first time in 2013. And it’s what keeps bringing her back—three months at a time, two times a year, on her visitor’s visa.

This article is the fourth in a series of reflections on the Street Retreat experience. This piece was transcribed from a talk given at Upaya Zen Center on September 28, 2015. Listen to the podcast here. Transcription by Scott Harris, Zen Peacemakers. Read Vice Abbot Joshin’s article here (Part One). Read Upaya Resident Kineret Yardena’s […]

by Kosho Brian Durel, Upaya Resident This article is the third in a series of reflections on the Street Retreat experience, Street Koans by Joshin Brian Byrnes and Upaya Residents after they spent four days on the streets of Albuquerque in September, 2015. Read Joshin’s article here (Part One). Read Upaya Resident Kineret Yardena’s article […]

The sorrow of all our human losses, great and small, anticipatory or contemporary, feeds into a river that runs beneath our lives. When that dark water breaks through the surface, at first we feel totally alone.

Roshi Joan reminds us that “no matter how unbearable any discomfort seems, ultimately every experience is temporary.” Therefore it is important to show up for your life every moment because it is perfect just as it is.

…I wanted to be there, to get close to what I had learned to move far away from. Deep entrenched poverty, dirtiness-bone-deep-filth, instability, aching belly hunger, sleeping on sidewalks, sleeping in cars, not having or holding down a job, drug addiction…everything that my parents and grandparents have spent their whole lives knowingly and unknowingly being […]

The money I received from Gertrude carried the energy of her commitment to make a difference—the stamp of her soul—and as I accepted the money, I felt inspired by her and renewed by her expression of integrity and purpose.

“If we could all go through life a little less certain of what we think we know, maybe we could all meet in the great vast cloud of not knowing, and walk to some new place together.” Joshin Brian Byrnes

“As we practice mindfully inhabiting the body, we learn its patterns and wisdom, the foundation of freedom to make choices.” Sensei Al Genkai Kaszniak, from his Dharma Talk at Upaya, Wednesday, Feb 3, 2016.